Views from the Road: an Inquiry Into the Meaning of Development in Lower Mustang Tracy Pecher SIT Study Abroad
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SIT Graduate Institute/SIT Study Abroad SIT Digital Collections Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection SIT Study Abroad Spring 2010 Views From the Road: An Inquiry Into the Meaning of Development in Lower Mustang Tracy Pecher SIT Study Abroad Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcollections.sit.edu/isp_collection Part of the Growth and Development Commons, and the Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons Recommended Citation Pecher, Tracy, "Views From the Road: An Inquiry Into the Meaning of Development in Lower Mustang" (2010). Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection. 881. https://digitalcollections.sit.edu/isp_collection/881 This Unpublished Paper is brought to you for free and open access by the SIT Study Abroad at SIT Digital Collections. It has been accepted for inclusion in Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection by an authorized administrator of SIT Digital Collections. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Views from the Road: An Inquiry Into the Meaning of Development in Lower Mustang Pecher, Tracy Academic Director: Onians, Isabelle Senior Faculty Advisor: Decleer, Hubert Fordham University Philosophy Asia, Nepal, Lower Mustang Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for Tibetan and Himalayan Studies, SIT Study Abroad, Spring 2010 1 ABSTRACT By considering the new road that connects the urban center of Pokhara to the previously isolated region of Lower Mustang, this paper examines the impacts of development in the area. I focus on the varied perspectives of three sets of individuals in the area: the founder of an NGO focused on agricultural development, youth from villages surrounding Jomsom, and a Canadian woman who settled in small village with her Thakali husband. I combine these personal accounts with an analysis of development on a broader scale, discussing a range of themes including conceptions of culture, education, and poverty. I emphasize that residents of the area should be free to determine their own fate and the future progression of development. I argue that the complex nature of the debate surrounding development in Mustang can best be understood through an approach that appeals to detailed personal accounts, since it is the effect upon individuals that matters most. 2 CONTENTS introduction...................................................................................................................4 Character sketches Toru Kondo ...............................................................................................................7 Niraj Thakali, Namaraj Adhikari and Indra Thakali ......................9 Tenzin Thakali and Meghan Powell ........................................................10 Pros and cons of Development...........................................................12 Concept of Culture.....................................................................................14 Tourism and Agricultural Development............................................17 Education and the Generation Gap..................................................21 Wealth and Poverty....................................................................................23 Choice and mobility...................................................................................26 Concluding Remarks.................................................................................27 Appendices Map of the Jomsom Region..............................................................................29 Methodology............................................................................................................30 Sources Works Cited .............................................................................................................31 Interviews .................................................................................................................32 Acknowledgements....................................................................................33 Suggestions for Future Research......................................................34 3 Introduction I went to Jomsom to study the road, but my transportation mode of choice was an airplane, flying over hills in a fraction of the time it would have taken to weave through them by road. The flight lasted 18 minutes, flying low in valleys through the craggy terrain. The bus ride would have taken two days, winding slowly and bumpily along the path cut jaggedly into the sides of mountains. Plane tickets are expensive, though, and previous options for transportation of people and goods had taken far longer, depending on the strength of porters and pack mules. That road, that possibility of motor transport between the bustling urban center of Pokhara and the isolated, undeveloped regions of lower Mustang, changes everything. The road is still very new, having reached Jomsom only two years ago. From Pokhara, it extends northwest to Beni, and then follows the lowland path carved by the Kali Gandaki river gorge north through Tatopani, Ghasa, Tukche, and Marpha to Jomsom, and then beyond to Kagbeni and Muktinath. This road is eventually destined to meet up with a section of road being built with Chinese funds, stretching down from the Lhasa Xinjiang highway in Tibet into Upper Mustang, reaching as far as Lo Manthang. The terrain changes as the road moves north from Pokhara’s warm, tropical lowland valley into the Himalayas, becoming drier and colder—and transforming into desert. Mustang has long held a reputation for its isolation from the modern world. Its desert terrain was a place where people still depended on horses for transportation and the local amchi, or traditional healer, for medical needs. It was seen as a freeze frame in time, a still photograph in a moving picture. Perhaps most famously, it was seen as a safe haven of traditional Tibetan culture. “The last traces of Nepal disappear at Marpha,” Giuseppe Tucci wrote in his travelogue, “We are truly in Tibet.”1 People recognized that “Tibetan culture” was preserved better in Mustang than in Tibet itself, because of China’s possession of Tibet and overwhelming desire to control the region’s cultural identity. In fact, Mustang served as a hideout for the Khampas, the guerilla resistance fighters who opposed the Chinese invasion of Tibet in the 1960s.2 Tibet’s struggle for independence and the “Free Tibet” movement has spiked foreign interest in all things Tibetan, contributing to tourism in the area.3 Mustang’s version of Tibetan culture is also seen as more organic and more natural than the transplanted 1 Giuseppe Tucci, Journey to Mustang 1952 (Kathmandu: Ratna Pustak Bandar, 1953), 52. 2 Peter Matthiesen, The Snow Leopard (New York: Bantam Books, 1978), 31. 3 Sienna Craig, “Place, Work, and Identity between Mustang, Nepal and New York City,” Studies In Nepali History and Society (2002): 383. 4 culture of Tibetans in exile in refugee communities in India and Nepal. Despite this reputation, Mustang historically served as a trade route between the highlands to the north and the flatlands to the south, exposing it to influences from both sides. The Kali Gandaki gorge provided a passable route through the mountains to these southern lands. Wool, horses, turquoise, and most famously salt were sent from the North in exchange for manufactured goods like cigarettes and fabrics as well as rice and grain.4 Markets for the exchange sprang up in Tukche, the name being a combination of the words for ‘grain’ and ‘flat place.’5 The road has been built along the With Syang to the west and Thini to the East, the Kali Gandaki same gorge, mirroring the ancient route of river runs through Lower Mustang, creating a lowland gorge useful for transportation. transportation and trade. And yet the road stands as a symbol of modernization, carved by huge yellow cranes into the sides of the hills that bow so naturally to the gorge itself. The river predates the relatively young Himalayan Mountains that still grow toward the sky, and “so we have a gorge that was not cut through a range, but a range that grew up around a gorge.”6 Leading to Muktinath, the river has long been considered sacred; its name offers some indication of this perception. Kali signifies “black female” or “dark woman,” and it is true that its steep walls, gray torrent, and black boulders give a hellish darkness to this river. Fierce Kali the Black, the female aspects of Time and Death, and the Devourer of All Things, is the consort of the Hindu god of the Himalaya, Great Shiva the Re-Creator and Destroyer; her black image, with its necklace of human skulls, is the emblem of this dark river that, rumbling down out of hidden peaks and vast clouds of unknowing, has filled the traveler with 4 Tucci, 49. 5 Berry Scott, A Stranger in Tibet: The Adventures of a Wandering Zen Monk (Tokyo & New York: Kodasha International, 1989), 71. 6 Scott, 66. 5 dread since the first human tried to cross and was borne away.7 The juxtaposition of this natural, powerful gorge and the man-made road provide a tangible contrast between old and new, traditional and modern. It is development incarnate. The road is more than a symbol—it does effectively change many aspects of life in Mustang. It offers the people of Mustang a connectivity to other urban centers that shatters its previous sense of isolation. With increased transportation comes increased cultural influence from the rest of the world—from Western clothing styles and unfortunate pop culture celebrities to education and medicine. The road allows for